Sustainable Investments in Africa: Beyond ESG

The uniqueness of the development challenges facing the African region implies that, for sustainability-related investments to have the intended impacts, it is imperative for stakeholders to take a step beyond checking the boxes for the regular ESG variables to focus on addressing the complex mix of context-specific factors that inhibit the sustainable development of Africa. To this end, this chapter identifies some of the unique development challenges of Africa that are beyond the borders of the ESG framework and then provides perspectives on how these issues could be incorporated into the development programs of policymakers in the region and international development partners in order to scale up the impacts of investments in SDG-related sectors and to fasten Africa’s progress towards the Agenda 2030.